


Tidying Up

by elementalv



Category: Sherlock - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-09
Updated: 2011-03-09
Packaged: 2017-10-16 19:42:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/168670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elementalv/pseuds/elementalv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The question was ill-advised, and John knew it, even as he asked it, but he was helpless before Mrs. Hudson and her unexpected determination to tell John far more than he ever wanted to know about her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tidying Up

John didn’t think that Sherlock’s mind was disorderly. The fact that he was able to make so many small observations and tie them together with certain facts lent a great deal of credence to the notion that Sherlock had a highly organized thought process. The problem was that the organization John assumed existed wasn’t immediately apparent in Sherlock’s filing system. At the same time, John had the maddening conviction that there was, in fact, an underlying structure to the papers that was at least as complex as Sherlock’s way of looking at the world. All he needed to do was figure it out.

“. . . amazing, really, the way he got himself all glittered up,” Mrs. Hudson said from the kitchen.

John, who’d been ignoring her as so much background noise since she honestly never stopped talking, looked up from the files in front of him to say, “I’m sorry, what?”

“My Johnny,” she said, which confused John to no end. He couldn’t recall her husband’s name offhand, but he was almost certain it wasn’t Johnny. And even if this was the same person, a man convicted of a capital crime in Florida didn’t strike John as the type to get himself “all glittered up.”

Game for anything that distracted him from trying to make sense of Sherlock’s concept of organization, John said, “And Johnny was —?”

“He was the one that got after me when I was still in school.” She sighed, lost in memory for a moment. “He was a charmer, that one. All spiked up hair and kohl-lined eyes. On his good days, he looked like he could be Freddie Mercury’s brother. Or maybe that nice Adam Lambert that’s all the rage these days.”

“I — what?”

Unbothered by or ignorant of John’s confusion, she continued, “And goodness gracious but he could carry off fishnets and a garter like no one’s business. He used to borrow my satin knickers for the club on a Saturday night. Favored the pink, he did, but sometimes he’d be of a mood for the purple.”

For a moment, John wondered if Mrs. Hudson had a twin sister, because the Mrs. Hudson he knew couldn’t possibly be saying — “I used to like to get him into one of my skirts — we were practically the same size, but I had hips, of course — and, oh my, he liked my fancy lace brassieres, too. We’d hit Masher’s —”

“Masher’s?” The question was ill-advised, and John knew it, even as he asked it, but he was helpless before Mrs. Hudson and her unexpected determination to tell John far more than he ever wanted to know about her.

“It was an underground club in Chelsea. Burnt down in 1978, I think. Or maybe it was 1979,” she said. And then she said, “Oh dear! I do wish Sherlock would stop storing blood in the refrigerator. That can’t be healthy, can it?”

“You —” John paused, trying to gather his thoughts. “You used to go to an underground club?”

“Not just one, dear! We used to go to all of them. We cut quite the figure, Johnny and me. That was a few years before I met my husband, of course, and it was a pity, really.”

John, who was trying desperately not to visualize Mrs. Hudson on a pub crawl with a cross-dressing, make-up wearing, Freddie-Mercury-clone, made the mistake of asking, “What’s a pity?”

“Oh, that Johnny was so particular.” She tsked as she moved another of Sherlock’s experiments to the countertop from the table.

“Particular?”

“About sex,” she said on a sigh.

John swallowed hard and bit down on his lower lip to prevent himself from offering any further encouragement of the conversation. Perhaps if he sat quietly, she wouldn’t —

“I didn’t mind tying him up,” she said, relentless in her determination to drive John ‘round the bend with unwanted visuals. “But I never could get the hang of that strap-on dildo he wanted me to wear.”

John made a noise that died before it could fully escape his throat, and he bit down even harder on his lower lip.

“I don’t imagine it’s much of a problem for you and Sherlock, seeing as how you both have got the right equipment for each other.”

“Mrs. Hudson!” John wished, once again, that Sherlock would stop encouraging her to believe that they were life partners. He wasn’t entirely certain why Sherlock persisted in feeding her fantasies, but it had to stop. Soon. Meanwhile —

“But that strap-on, it never quite fit right. There I’d be, plowing into my Johnny just the way he liked, and the next thing you know, the straps would come loose, and he’d be upset because I hadn’t finished him off the way he wanted.”

She stopped talking at that point, and John fervently hoped that was the end of it, but then she came into the lounge and stood before him, a pensive look on her face. “You know, now that I think about it, perhaps it’s just as well Johnny and I never did get married. He was awfully selfish.”

“Selfish?” John said in a weak voice.

“Oh, goodness yes. As soon as he’d get done, he’d be out like a light, and never mind me waiting for my own.” She frowned for a moment then nodded decisively. “No. I think it’s best that we didn’t work out.”

“Er — all right?”

She gave him a bright smile and said, “Thank you, dear! That’s been bothering me the last thirty-odd years. I’m so glad I don’t have to fret over it anymore. Now, if you’ve nothing else, I have my own cleaning to do. Give my love to Sherlock when you see him, and please remind him again I’m not the housekeeper.” Mrs. Hudson was almost out the door when she paused to say, “You know, you and Sherlock might consider finding one of those underground clubs yourselves. The pair of you work too hard, and it’s good to blow off a bit of steam every so often. Spices things up, in the bedroom, right?“

“Um —”

“You think about it, then,” she said, before closing the door behind her.

For a moment — a very brief moment — John did exactly that and suffered the image of Sherlock going out in fishnets and satin knickers. Then he very deliberately put both the thought and Mrs. Hudson’s rambling out of his head, because while Afghanistan hadn’t broken him, it was entirely possible these two things would.


End file.
